


Children's Crusade (Tomorrow Never Comes)

by yet_intrepid



Series: Asleep in My Arms [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Corporal Punishment, Episode: s02e03 Bloodlust, Episode: s09e07 Bad Boys, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Literary References & Allusions, Neglect, Nerd Dean, Nerd Sam, Parental Pastor Jim, Pre-Series, Teenchesters, Towels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 20:58:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3223223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything changes when Dad knocks on the door. Dean changes, most of all, and Sam hates that. He wants them staying safe in Blue Earth with his soccer ball, Dean’s essay on Vonnegut, and the ceaseless fountain of weird ideas that seems to flow when they don’t have to worry about making Dad mad. </p><p>But it’s not about what Sam wants. It never is. So instead, he’s sitting in the car in the middle of the night on the side of an abandoned highway, trying to stay awake while Dad and Dean try not to die.</p><p>Written for the SWBB 2015!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Raid on the Inarticulate

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is the result of my participation in the Sam Winchester Big Bang. I had so much fun being a part of it--originally I thought I would only write a mini, but this has turned out to be my longest complete fic, and I'm really proud of myself for that. Massive thanks to [ jellyfishline](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishline/pseuds/jellyfishline) for her beta work (honestly, I don't know if anyone else would have been such a great sport with some of the weird questions I had and tangents I went off on related to this fic.) The artwork is by [ marikah](http://marikah.tumblr.com/post/109029188684/sam-winchester-big-bang-this-is-the-art-for-the)\--go give it some love!

“Dude, your handwriting is crap,” Sam complains.

He’s sitting on his bed at Pastor Jim’s, reading Dean’s essay. Not that Dean needs him to read this one, but Sam always reads Dean’s essays. Dean usually reads Sam’s, too. And last spring, when Dean disappeared and Sam stayed at Uncle Bobby’s, they didn’t get to do it. So it’s even more important now, because turning them in just doesn’t feel right otherwise.

Dean looks up from digging in the hamper. “Yeah, well, your laundry stinks. This shirt you wore to soccer practice last night? Man, I didn’t know you could sweat like that. I’m almost impressed.”

“That’s why I’m _washing_ it.” Sam shakes his head. “Dean, you know the hamper is for dirty clothes, right? If you’re looking for things to pack before Dad comes, try your drawers. We have those here, remember.”

Dean flings a pair of definitively dirty socks at Sam’s head; Sam tosses them back into the hamper in order not to instigate war. Dean looks disappointed, but goes on with his search. “Course I remember, dorkface. I think I left a folding knife in my jeans pocket the other day. Gotta find it.”

“So find it when we run laundry.” Sam looks back down at the essay, reads a few more lines. “Wait,” he says, “okay, let me get this straight. This book isn’t written in order? Like, the plot doesn’t go from one scene to the next? It just jumps around?”

“Yeah,” says Dean. “But it’s cool.” He pulls out a pair of jeans and checks the pockets. Nothing.

Sam shrugs. “I mean, you’re writing about how it’s significant to the theme. So I guess it can’t just be weird and pointless.” He keeps reading. Vonnegut’s _Slaughterhouse Five_ is about the way time happens to people, according to Dean, and how it influences the way we should try to be happy.

“ _That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough_ ,” Sam reads aloud; it’s a quote Dean inserted into his paper. “ _Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones_.”

“Dude,” says Dean, “don’t read it out loud; that’s just weird.”

Sam shrugs. He scribbles in how Dean can transition better into the quote. Dean probably won’t take his suggestion, but Sam knows he doesn’t mind it being there. He wants to think more about the quote, talk about it, decide if he agrees with it—but it’s Dean’s book. Sam doesn’t want to intrude. Besides, he doesn’t have time to think, because Dean’s talking again.

“I can’t find this damn knife.” He shakes out another pair of jeans.

“Dean, you have like seven folding knives, and I’ve got four,” Sam says. “And Pastor Jim probably has a bunch too. Why do you need this one?”

“I just don’t wanna lose it, okay. It’s my consecrated iron one.” Dean looks angry, but Sam can see straight through it. The reason Dean doesn’t want to lose it is that Dad’s picking him up to finish up a ghost hunt, and he’s sure to ask. Dad always asks, and it won’t matter that Dean could borrow five different kinds of consecrated iron knives from Pastor Jim.

So Sam sets the essay aside and gets off the bed. “Are you sure it was in your jeans?”

Dean crosses his arms. “No, Sam, I misplace my knives all the time. Of course it was in my jeans!”

“Okay, okay. Then are you sure you put the jeans in the wash?”

Dean turns to his drawers, pulls out the faded pair of jeans that’s left in there. He needs new ones, Sam thinks; it’s too bad he wouldn’t let Pastor Jim get him some when they started school. But in the pocket of that pair is the folding knife. Dean sighs in relief, clips it onto the pair he’s wearing. Then he takes the jeans from the drawer and tosses them into his duffel.

Sam reads the rest of the essay while Dean packs. It’s nice, being together in a room with enough space for both of them, working on stuff. As long as he ignores the fact that Dean’s going away with Dad, anyways.

Dad keeps dragging Dean off on hunts. Sam doesn’t get why, because Pastor Jim says the reason they’re living here for a while is so they can have a break, be stable for a bit. But then again, that doesn’t sound like a Dad-reason at all. Dad’s reason was probably that he was sick of dealing with Sam after spending all summer with him.

It should be just a salt-and-burn, Sam reassures himself. And it’s Friday afternoon right now, and Dad’s already done the research, so Dean probably won’t miss any school this time. Which is good, because he’s supposed to turn in this essay on Monday.

Dean’s voice breaks into his thoughts. “Looking pensive over there. Vonnegut break your brain yet?”

“I got to the end,” Sam answers. “It’s really pretty good. Like, I don’t know if I want to read the book, but it’s a cool essay. Especially the bit about how if time is stable, then everything really just has to happen. I don’t know any other stories about time travel where time isn’t moving somehow.”

Dean tosses a book into his duffel, starts to zip it shut, then unzips it and buries the book under some clothes. “I need another pair of jeans. You think I can get some out of the hamper?”

“I’ve read something about that somewhere,” Sam says.

“About getting jeans out of the hamper?”

“No, about time and choice,” Sam throws back at him, indignantly. “Hang on, I’m gonna go look for a book.”

“He’s gonna go look for a book,” Dean comments to nobody, as Sam heads to the living room.

When Sam comes back, Dean is holding a pair of jeans from the hamper, his folding knife, and an old motel towel. Sam is holding a book of poetry.

“Look,” says Sam. “T. S. Eliot. _If all time is eternally present, all time is unredeemable_. You should totally, totally put that in your essay. Your teacher’ll be way impressed.”

“Maybe,” says Dean. “But right now I’ve got a theory that’s way more impressive than any poetry, okay.”

Sam raises his eyebrows. Looks at the stuff Dean’s holding. “Shoot,” he says.

“Okay,” Dean says. “So, evil spirits don’t do well with consecrated stuff, right? Good meets evil, nixes it. Salt’s a purifier, like you keep saying. And there was that one time we were out of salt and we ran from the ghost into a church, remember? And it couldn’t come after us. Like, I know Dad’s been attacked in churches before, so maybe it only works if the ghost was, like, an awful person, but still. Hallowed ground, right?”

“Right,” says Sam. “Where’s this headed?”

“Well,” Dean says, and he gets this big dorky grin clear across his face as he kinda waves the folded knife a bit, “what’s to say only iron and water and ground and stuff can get hallowed?”

Sam just stares. Dean keeps grinning at him.

“I mean,” he says, “maybe there’s some rule about it. But think, okay. What if we didn’t just have consecrated bullets and knives? We could have, say, a consecrated towel! Our own personal, movable patch of hallowed ground!”

“What does this have to do with _anything_ ,” Sam says.

“Dude,” says Dean. “We could revolutionize hunting. Like, imagine you’re a ghost.” He throws the towel over Sam’s head. “Poof! You’re gone!”

Sam pulls the towel off his head and tosses it back at Dean. “Okay,” he says. “But I don’t know that you _can_ consecrate a towel. We’ll have to ask Pastor Jim.”

“Cool,” says Dean. “I have to ask if I can use his computer to type up my essay anyway.”

They troop down the hall, past the bathroom and the living room and the kitchen, and find Pastor Jim in his study. He’s not working on a sermon, just straightening up some books and papers, so Sam goes in.

Pastor Jim looks up. “Sam,” he says, “I was about to come look for you. I’ve got a question.”

“We’ve got a question too,” says Sam, a little awkwardly. He looks back at Dean, who’s still holding the towel.

Pastor Jim smiles. “Okay, you first.”

“Uh,” Sam starts, “well, it’s kind of about hunting? And kind of about religion, I guess, but what we were wondering is, uh—why are some things consecrated and not others? Like, there’s holy water and consecrated iron and hallowed ground. But if other things were consecrated too, they could maybe be useful in different ways.”

“Right,” says Pastor Jim, encouragingly, because Sam knows he’s having trouble getting to the point, but then Dean breaks in.

“Like, a towel,” he says, and he holds it up. “Do a little consecration thingy, pop it over a ghost’s head. Or stand on it so a demon can’t get at you. Like movable hallowed ground. I mean, can you do that?”

Pastor Jim’s face twitches. “Okay, well,” he says, “first things first, I can’t _consecrate_ it. Iron rounds aren’t consecrated either, because consecration is only done by bishops and it’s reserved for certain items. They’re blessed.”

“So can you _bless_ a towel?” Sam asks. He makes a note to only ever say _blessed iron rounds_ in the future.

Pastor Jim pulls out an encyclopedia. “Well, here are the rules for ‘blessing of things’. You can bless items used in worship, some foods, domestic animals, and houses and schools. And then there’s this last category, that says _inanimate things that subserve the equitable needs and convenience of society may receive from the Church the stamp of her benediction before they are sent on their way to do their appointed tasks._ And it lists some things, and then it says, _the many serious accidents that occur explain the concern of the Church for those whose lives are exposed to danger from these various sources._ So that’s the justification for blessing stuff related to hunting, and there’s nothing that excludes daily objects like towels as long as they’re going to serve society and be part of a dangerous occupation.”

Dean’s grinning, wide and goofy. “Cool,” he says. “Cause you know, Dad’s picking me up for that hunt tonight, and last he called he said it was probably a ghost, and they react to hallowed ground sometimes. So could you—uh, I mean—if you don’t mind—”

“As long as you respect it,” Pastor Jim says, but he’s grinning back. “I mean, this is part of my religion, after all. And it _could_ save your life.”

“Yes sir,” says Dean, without one ounce of happiness fading from his face.

“About that hunt, though,” says Pastor Jim, “that was why I needed to talk to you, Sam. I just got a call from a friend of mine who needs me to run a funeral tomorrow, and it’s far enough away that I’ll have to stay one night, maybe two. And Dean will be gone with your dad. You might have to come with me.”

Sam’s brow wrinkles. “You don’t need to worry about me,” he says. “I can take care of myself and I won’t make a mess or break stuff. I mean, it’s just two days, right? You’d be coming back for sure before Monday?”

Pastor Jim frowns. “I’m not worried about you being irresponsible, Sam. I know you’re very mature for your age. But you’re still twelve years old, and I would feel better if you came along. I know funerals aren’t fun, but your soccer games haven’t started yet so you won’t be missing anything, and I’ll take you to do something when I’m not working on the funeral. The town’s bigger than Blue Earth; there’ll be movies and laser tag, lots of things to choose from.”

“Okay,” says Sam. There probably isn’t another option, but it really does sound okay. He can spend time talking to Pastor Jim in the car, too.

“Okay,” Pastor Jim says back. The frown clears up from his face. “Dean, I’ll bless that towel now. And then you both need to finish packing, right? And I should run out and purchase a flower arrangement for the family.”

“I’m done packing,” says Dean. “Can I use your computer to type up my homework for Monday? It’s an essay. English.”

“Sure,” says Pastor Jim. “But first, let’s bless that towel.”

Dean hands it over, and Pastor Jim laughs under his breath.

“Never know what might save your life,” he says.

\----

Sam checks one last time to make sure he’s got all his homework assignments and then zips his duffel bag shut. Down the hall, Pastor Jim’s printer is putting up a noisy fight about printing Dean’s essay. Dean yells something over the racket, but Sam can’t make it out.

“What?” he calls back.

“I said,” says Dean, “can you bring my bag to the living room when you’re done? Dad should be here soon.”

“Sure,” Sam says. He picks up one bag in each hand and drags them down the hall, setting them next to the couch.  As he does, Dean comes out of the study. He’s got the towel over his shoulder and two sheets of paper held out in front of him.

“All dressed up and ready to go, huh?” he says, grinning down at his essay. “Gonna have to wait till Monday, though.”

“I’ve got a folder you can put it in if you want,” Sam offers. “So it won’t get wrinkled.”

“Naw, it’s okay,” Dean says. “But Sam, uh—you never know with hunting. Guess I might not be back to turn it in on time. Would you—I mean, only if you don’t mind?”

Sam nods. “I can go over to the high school before classes start, drop it by your teacher’s office. Come up with some excuse. But you should be back, right? I mean, Dad’s got this one mostly figured out. Or that’s what he said when he called from the motel two days ago.”

“Yeah.” Dean shifts restlessly. “I’ll be back. Hang on, I’m gonna go put this with my books.”

He disappears towards the bedroom. Sam sits down on the couch and tries not to think about Dad making Dean miss school. He thinks about the weird book Dean’s essay was on, instead, and about T. S. Eliot.

“Hey Dean,” he calls, “do you think time really moves? Because Vonnegut, he talks about it being frozen in little pieces. But the rest of that poem, the one I showed you earlier, I think it’s about time being fluid and the still moments being the ones where we’re…outside of time, kind of.” He looks over his shoulder; Dean is right behind him, pulling his trademarkface of disbelief. Sam sighs, wishing he could explain better. “Like—they’re both really good writers, but they can’t both be right, can they? Either time moves or it doesn’t. We can change how the next moment goes, or we can’t.”

Dean shakes his head. “I can’t believe someone as weird as you even exists. Let alone is related to me.”

“Hey!” Sam rises in indignation. “You wrote about this stuff in your essay!”

“Doesn’t mean I wanna spend my free time thinking about it. Comparing it to poems and shit.” Dean pulls the towel from his shoulder. “You know what I’m thinking about? How I’m gonna be the next Indiana Jones, huh Sammy?” He swishes the towel, makes it snap, strikes a pose. “Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory, and ghosts beware.”

“Dean,” says Sam. “That’s a _towel_.”

“Hey,” says Dean. “It might save your life.”

“I can’t believe _I’m_ related to _you_ ,” Sam says, and he grabs for the towel. Dean shoves him, and they go down tussling. In half a minute Sam’s on the ground and Dean’s in the kitchen, holding the towel over his head and laughing. Sam’s laughing too, because it’s a towel, a freaking _blessed towel_ , and he tries to get up but he falls all over himself.

There’s a knock at the door.

They freeze. “Dad,” says Dean, and he tosses Sam the towel. Sam catches it and shoves it into his duffel.

“Pastor Jim’s not back,” he says.

“It’s okay,” Dean says. “I’ll get the door.”

As he crosses into the living room, the knock comes again. Louder. Harder. Sam swallows and hates himself because he’s scared but he knows it’s just Dad and everything is okay, he’s going away with Pastor Jim for the weekend and he’ll do his homework and  help with the funeral and then get to do something special. Maybe he’ll ask if there’s a zoo, because Dean would laugh at him for still liking zoos but he does, secretly.

Dean opens the door. Dad comes in, outlined against the last of the sunlight.

“Hey, Dad,” says Dean. “Drive go okay?”

Dad looks around. “Where’s Jim?” he says, without answering Dean.

“He had to run some errands,” Dean says. “Should be back any minute.”

Dad frowns. “Well, I need him for backup. This won’t be a simple salt-and-burn.”

“I can still do it, Dad,” Dean starts. “You don’t have to leave me here—”

“I’m not saying I’m leaving you here, Dean,” Dad interrupts. “But I need another experienced hunter. The job’s not what I thought; it’s not a spirit at all. It’s a shapeshifter, and I’ve never dealt with one before. I’ve got it ID’d and wounded and it’s not far off, but I need someone I can really count on.”

Dean looks away. Sam takes a deep breath. He doesn’t really want to call Dad’s attention to himself, but it’s important that they have all the facts.

“Pastor Jim isn’t free this weekend, though,” he says. “I mean—I know this is important, but he promised another pastor he’d do a funeral out of town, and you know how he is about keeping promises. That’s why he’s running errands, to get ready.”

Dad looks at Sam, and Sam looks straight ahead like he’s supposed to. He bites his lip, though, because he doesn’t know what Dad’s gonna do. He’s hoping Dad will wait, call somebody else. Uncle Bobby isn’t that far away. Maybe he’ll leave Dean out of it, even. Shapeshifters sound really dangerous, especially if Dad’s never fought one before.

“Fine,” Dad says finally. “Damn it, but fine. Dean, grab your gear. You’re gonna have to man up, you hear me? Because it’ll be just you backing me up, and if I can’t count on you, we’re both dead.”

Dean goes stone-still, hesitates just a second. And then he gives a little nod. “Yes sir.”

Dean turns to grab his bag and Sam’s been frozen all this time but now, now he can move. He’s fast, too. He gets between Dean and the bag, pins it to the couch with his feet.

“You can’t do this,” he says. “You can’t, Dad.”

Dad lifts his eyebrows, takes one warning step forward. “Stand down, Sam.”

“No,” says Sam. “I won’t. I won’t let you take Dean out there where it’s dangerous, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and _you_ don’t even know what you’re doing. I won’t let you get him killed.”

“Okay,” says Dad. “So how are you gonna stop me? You know I can take that bag if I want it.”

Sam knows that. Knows Dad’s strong, can beat him in any fight, can make him bend over and take a belt licking even if Sam spends the whole time trying to wrestle out of it. Knows Dad is strong other ways too, that he can pull Sam out of school and make him move, or put him back through awful training like last summer. It’s just a matter of how far Sam can push before Dad will do something Sam will hate, and whether Sam will hate it enough to give in.

He sets his jaw. “You can do what you want,” he says. “But Dean’s not a grown-up hunter, Dad. You can’t treat him like one.”

“ ’Scuse you, squirt,” Dean puts in, testily. “Watch who you’re calling a kid.”

“Damn right I can do what I want,” Dad says, like he didn’t hear Dean. He takes two steps, ends up right in front of Sam. Sam feels that heavy hand come down on his shoulder, and he tries to resist but it forces him forward so that the bag comes free. “So yes, I’m taking Dean. And since I guess you need a reminder what respect looks like, I’m taking you, too.”

Sam’s mouth drops open a little. He closes it. Wrenches away from Dad, his heart beating fast. He’s getting taken on a hunt. A real one, a big one, not just research or digging or laying salt lines. Something Dad and Dean both aren’t really ready for.

He’s not sure what to do with the sheer terror of it.

“Pack,” says Dad. “Three minutes. Dean and I’ll be in the car. You aren’t out by then, I’m coming in.”

And he turns on his heel. Dean grabs his bag and follows him out the door, sparing Sam a faint smile over his shoulder.

The door shuts behind them before Sam remembers that he already has his duffel packed to go with Pastor Jim. Somehow Dad must not have seen it. He sets it by the door and then dashes over to the notepad in the kitchen, picking up the pen that’s always beside it and scribbling a note.

_Pastor Jim—_

_Dad came and he said it’s a shapeshifter, not a ghost. He wanted you for backup but you weren’t here and I know you have to do the funeral anyway. He’s still taking Dean, and me too. So that’s where I am. It sounds like a really hard hunt so I guess it’d be good if you prayed._

_Sam_

He takes a minute to calm his breathing. There’s nothing to do but go, after all; if he doesn’t obey now Dad’s only gonna get madder. Maybe he could stall long enough for Pastor Jim to get back and come up with something else, but then the shapeshifter might get away.

There’s nothing for it, he tells himself. So he picks up his duffel bag and locks the door behind him.

\----

They drive and drive. Dad and Dean talk in low voices up front, things about the hunt that Sam isn’t supposed to know even though he has to come. Sam sits in the back with his duffel, because the trunk was already shut when he came out from Pastor Jim’s. He thinks about shapeshifters. He knows a little, that they look human and change form, and that you need silver to kill them. But that doesn’t seem like enough.

The light through the car windows dims steadily and fades away. Sam thinks about Pastor Jim, wonders if he’s left to run the funeral yet. Wishes he could be in that car instead of this one. Wishes there were a grownup here to hunt with Dad, instead of him and Dean.

His watch ticks slowly in the darkness. He wonders if he helped make this happen, this moment in the dark speeding towards a monster, or if it was always here, waiting for him to arrive.


	2. With Shabby Equipment Always Deteriorating

It’s been dead silent in the car for an hour when Dean clears his throat.

“Saw a sign,” he says. “Couple exits coming up, and not the kind that just disappear into the woods. Fun as those are, I mean, civilization’s got its perks.”

Dad doesn’t take the hint. Just keeps on driving straight ahead, and Sam in the back folds his arms because of course that’s how it is; of course the first meal after Dad picks them up is going to be a missed one.

Dean tries again. “You wanna grab food, Dad? Saw some signs—”

“I heard you the first time, Dean,” Dad says, and just like that Dean shuts down but he can’t even get “yes sir” all the way out before Dad picks up. “We’re turning off before that. Next exit. Can’t waste time.”

“Yes sir,” Dean says again.

Sam doesn’t say anything. He kind of wants to, but he’s too busy processing that they are going on this hunt _right now_.

He should have guessed it, with all the hurry Dad was in. If he couldn’t wait fifteen minutes for Pastor Jim, he definitely isn’t going to check into a motel and wait for tomorrow. But it’s gotten real now, somehow. They’re gonna drive until they get to where the shifter is, and then they’re gonna try and kill it.

Sam closes his eyes. He wishes Dad hadn’t come. Not that he wants Dad out here trying to do the job all alone, because he doesn’t want Dad to get hurt or killed, but he really, really doesn’t want to be part of it. And he doesn’t want Dean to be part of it. He wants them both back at Pastor Jim’s, where they can sit on their separate beds and talk about Vonnegut and wrestle over towels.

“Sam!”

Sam opens his eyes. Dad sounds even more frustrated than he did when he was talking to Dean, so Sam bites his lip and takes a deep breath and promises in his head he won’t act up anymore. “Yes sir?”

“What did I just say?”

Crap. “Sorry, sir. I—I didn’t hear.”

“You mean you weren’t listening. Christ, Sam. Where do you think we’re going here, an amusement park?” Dad shakes his head. “I’m about to give you boys the plan, so get your head in the game because there’s more than one life on the line tonight. Understood?”

“Yes sir,” says Sam, and he means it this time, because he doesn’t want anyone to die. Even if he’s a bad hunter, and not the son Dad wants, he really doesn’t want anyone to die.

“Good,” says Dad, as he exits off the freeway. “Now, this shifter. Last I saw, it’d taken the form of a man, maybe five-ten. Thin, dark hair, glasses. Silver bullet wound to the left knee. It drove out here when it realized I was on its tail, but I trashed its car when it stopped and I think it’s gone into the woods. The research is saying a wound from silver might hinder the ability to shift, but we can’t be sure. In any case, it should still have the wound, because it doesn’t use someone else’s body, only imitates it. Clear?”

“But,” says Sam, carefully, “even if it can’t shift, it might still go into the town so it could get taken to a hospital, right? Because if the wound heals, maybe it’ll be able to shift again, and in a hospital there’d be a lot of people to imitate.”

Dad shakes his head. “I caught it killing, looking just like it looks now. Reported it. They’ve even got security cam footage. So if it shows before changing its face, it’ll go under arrest. Which we don’t want, but it doesn’t want that either. Trust me, Sam, I know what I’m doing.”

Sam mutters another apology, but Dad’s already talking again.

“We’re gonna have to go into the woods after it. Old-fashioned tracking. The risk is, it might circle back around us and decide a quick escape is the better plan after all, and the last thing we want is that son of a bitch getting the car. So Sam, you’ll be responsible for protecting our getaway. Stay in the car, and anybody who comes near, you test ’em with silver. Dean and I will do the tracking.”

And just like that, Dad pulls over on the side of the road. At first Sam only sees darkness and trees, so who knows how Dad knew what spot to choose, but then the headlights flare and he can tell there’s a little dirt road there. Dad parks in its mouth, still in view of the highway, and jerks his thumb for them to get out and gear up.

They gather around the open trunk, and Dad checks the supply of silver bullets. Sam can’t really see around Dad and Dean, but he can tell it’s low. Way too low.

Dad considers. “Dean, you’ll take the crossbow,” he says. “I’ve still got silver-tipped bolts. I’d rather you have a gun, but Sam’s gotta take some of these bullets.”

Because he’s useless with the crossbow, Sam fills in, but Dean says, “Yeah, crossbow’s too big to be any good in the car.” He picks up the crossbow, finds the ammo, trades out his consecrated iron knife for a silver one.

Dad gives Sam a handgun and the silver rounds to fit. “Get it loaded and keep on the watch,” he says. “You’re as much a part of this hunt as we are, you understand?”

Sam nods, reaching for a flashlight and a silver knife of his own. He’s only got four shots, but hopefully he won’t need any of them. Dad only has six, and he’s gonna need some for sure, but he’s a great shot and Sam’s only kinda good for his age. It’s tight, but with Dean’s full set of crossbow bolts, he figures they should be okay.

Dad takes the keys out of his pocket and hands them to Sam with a look that says _you don’t let go of these until they’re back in my hands_ , and then he turns to Dean and says, “Get a move on.”

Sam feels his stomach drop as Dean shuts the trunk with a too-loud bang. They’re going; they’re really going; they’re leaving him out here to make sure the shifter doesn’t steal the car and get away. He tries not to look terrified but he can tell it isn’t working because Dean flashes him one of those smiles, an _it’s okay Sammy_ smile, and Sam tries to smile back but it really, really isn’t okay.

Dean’s hand is on his shoulder for the barest of moments, and then he and Dad are trudging off into the dark. Sam climbs into the back seat and stares after them through the window, but it’s not very long before they’re swallowed up.

He switches on the flashlight and loads the gun. His hands shake, but he gets through it, and then he reaches up front and locks all the doors. He can do this, he tells himself. He can.

He just doesn’t want to.

\----

Sam decides to keep the flashlight switched off in case anybody comes down the road. He doesn’t want to draw attention, but it’s a useless precaution; the highway stays silent and still.

His resolve lasts maybe ten minutes before he turns the flashlight back on and points it at his duffel. He’s got homework in there. And yeah, he needs to be watching, but if he just keeps staring into the dark he’s gonna start seeing stuff that’s not there. He’s got to keep busy somehow.

Geography’s on top. He opens up a notebook, then digs around for a pencil. There’s a set of review questions on bodies of water due Monday.

When he lands his flashlight beam on the page, a green cartoon alien stares up at him. Sam stares back for a minute before shaking himself and reading the instructions.

_Alien X has just landed on earth, and he’s terrified! Back on his home planet, baby aliens were told stories about the teeth of the delta, the claws of the fjord, and the mouth of the bay to keep them from venturing towards Earth. Now Alien X has braved the journey, but he needs you to explain to him that bodies of water aren’t bodies at all, let alone dangerous creatures. Define the vocabulary words in full sentences below._

Sam snorts. Dangerous creatures, sure. So now he gets to sit here and explain how a delta doesn’t have any teeth, when there’s a real monster out there he needs to be looking out for. Even if its teeth probably look just like his.

He takes a look out the window, his right hand resting on the gun, before picking up the pencil again and maneuvering the flashlight so he can see both the review questions and his notebook.

Question one. The alien wants to know if people get swallowed by gulfs. _No_ , Sam writes, _a gulf is an inlet of the ocean with a narrow entrance. Sometimes the entrance is called a mouth._

 He shakes his head. Sure, it’s nice to have homework changed up from just plain definitions sometimes, but if aliens ever came Sam’s pretty sure they’d be dangerous. Or maybe they’d want to abduct people for scientific experiments, like the ones in Dean’s essay.

God, Sam suddenly thinks. Dean’s essay.

Dean could get killed on this hunt and never hand in that essay. The shapeshifter could sneak up behind him and take the crossbow. Shoot him in the head. Or stab him in the heart. Or break his neck. Hell, it could even get the jump on Dad, maybe, and grab the gun. Things _happen_ on hunts. Dad’s good, but he wanted more backup and he didn’t get it and now, now they’re out there and Dean might never turn in that essay. And he was so proud of it, typed it up—

Sam draws in a shuddering breath. Get a grip, he tells himself, and he tries to think of Dean saying it, shaking him, laughing. But he can only hear Dad.

_Get a grip, Sam. Your goddamn feelings are gonna get you killed one day. Man up, Sam. Family business. It’s all part of the job. It’s the risk we take. That’s life, Sam. Family business. Gotta do what we gotta do._

What happens to a family business if there’s no family left?

He shines the flashlight out the window, scanning the empty road and the too-still woods. Nothing. So he bites his lip and looks back down at the geography page. Alien X wants to know what a canal is.

And Sam just can’t deal, and he decides he doesn’t have to right now if he doesn’t want, because it’s just not _fair_ for him to have to define terms for bodies of water when Dad and Dean could be dying and he doesn’t even have a way to know. He slams the book shut and drops the flashlight on the seat, reaching half-blindly for his duffel to put his homework stuff away.

He’s kinda cold, too, he realizes, so he digs under the books for a hoodie but what he finds first is something rougher and he’s not sure what it is so he pulls it out.

It’s the towel. Dean’s freaking blessed towel.

And somehow that’s worse than the essay because it was about hunting but it was still funny, and now hunting isn’t funny at all. Hunting is the worst thing ever. Sam draws the towel towards him and balls it up in his arms, stubbornly ignoring the fact that his eyes are damp.

_That was an order, Sam. Did I say you could ask questions? Family business. Gotta go where the job takes us. You think getting what you want is more important than these people’s lives? Come on, Sam. Grow up, Sam. Get in the car, Sam. Family business._

What about when your family business kills your family, Dad? Sam launches back at the stream of thoughts. What about when it kills you?

The towel’s kind of pressed up against his chest now and if that’s stupid, well, nobody’s looking and the only people who care if he’s stupid might not even be alive anymore. Maybe they’re bleeding out right now, or Dad’s wounded and Dean’s trying to carry him back. Maybe what Sam needs to do is get the hell out there and find them. But it’s dark, and Dad says he’s still crap at tracking, and besides, he has to keep the shifter from stealing the car. If Dad’s okay and Sam leaves position, he’ll have to answer for it. Dad never takes panic for an excuse, either.

_For God’s sake don’t lose your head, Sam. You stay where I put you or so help me, Sam. Family business, Sam. Family business._

Sam hides his face in the towel. Pretends he’s not crying. Thinks, but everything’s a circle. Wishes someone, anyone, were here to help him.

_You know what, Sam, I’m sick of your fucking attitude. I don’t have time for this, Sam. Try a little respect, Sam. Quit bitching, Sam._

He’s shaking now and he tells himself he’s just cold but the tears are coming harder and he doesn’t even know for sure what he’s crying about. He just knows that he shouldn’t be here, and Dean shouldn’t be here, and it isn’t right. His job isn’t that hard, really, so he shouldn’t whine about it, but Dean’s only sixteen and that isn’t old enough to die.

And oh God, oh God, Sam isn’t old enough to live without Dean.

“Please,” he whispers into the towel and he doesn’t know if he’s praying or what but the thing is blessed so that has to mean something, right? “Oh God. Please.”

He can’t say anything else, can’t get his breath. Can’t do anything but cry, and feel terrified and selfish and sad.

This really, really isn’t okay.

\----

Sam wakes up with a jerk, the towel damp between his cheek and the window. The moon’s shifted across the sky and the flashlight batteries have gotten weak.

Shit, he thinks, and he fumbles to feel that all the doors are still locked. They are. He checks his watch, but it’s stopped working; it keeps saying 10:43 and he knows that’s not right. The gun’s still loaded with the safety on. Dad and Dean aren’t back. For a second he’s relieved, because Dad would really lay into him for falling asleep during a hunt, but then his gut twists and he wonders how long this hunt is supposed to take. Dad didn’t give him a backup plan, no word on what he was supposed to do if they don’t come back. How long is he supposed to wait? By morning he’ll have to move the car away from the highway to avoid people asking questions, and he really doesn’t want to do that. He’s driven a couple times, in parking lots and on back roads, but not all by himself, and not around all these trees without even any lines. And as much as he hates it, he’s still too short, anyway.

He takes a good look around before switching off the flashlight to save what’s left of the batteries. He’s still tired, a cold dull sort of tiredness, and he thinks vaguely about food before realizing what a bad idea that is, because now he’s hungry, too.

Rubbing his eyes, he stretches as much as he can before climbing over into the front seat. Sometimes Dad keeps stuff in the glove compartment to help him stay awake while he’s driving. And sure enough, there’s a plastic container of peanuts. When Sam digs it out from the pile of car registrations, real and fake, he realizes it’s mostly empty.

Which is okay. The salt on them is just going to make him thirsty, so he shouldn’t eat too many anyway. There’s probably a bottle of water under the seats somewhere, but too much of that and he’ll have to get out of the car.

The peanuts only make one scant handful. He eats them one at a time at first but then he’s really hungry and before he knows it they’re gone. Really smart there, Sam, he tells himself, and it sounds like his dad again. He bites his lip, brushes the salt from his hands. Then he screws the lid on the empty container, puts it back in the glove compartment, and scrambles over into the back seat again.

It’s getting lighter. He takes another look around, feels another deep pinch of worry. If they’re not back by sunrise, he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

The worry deepens as the sky grays. Sam puts on his hoodie, checks his watch again before he remembers it’s broken. Then he gets thirsty, checks under the seats for a water bottle. He doesn’t find one. Only thing down there is a couple of Now&Laters, the grape and watermelon kinds that only Dad likes. Sam eats them anyway, slow as he can and grimacing, to get rid of the salt in his mouth.

The last one’s close to disappearing when he looks up and sights them, Dad and Dean both. Hope and fear and nameless things surge inside him, and before he knows what he’s doing he’s snatched up the keys and wrenched open the door.

He darts out. His legs are stiff and half-asleep but he feels them starting to work because he sees blood, dammit, and Dean’s limping. He covers distance faster than Dad and Dean do and he’s got his arm under Dean’s and he’s saying, “it’s all right, take it easy, I’ve got you—”

And then Dad’s voice breaks in. “Christ, Sam. Silver!”

Sam’s stomach drops and he grabs for the small silver sheath knife in his pocket, trying to keep Dean supported in the process. He draws the knife and Dean shoves up his sleeve and Sam doesn’t want to think about it so he just cuts, leaving a thin red line that starts spreading out fast. No burning, though, and Sam gets angry. He just had to cut Dean, when Dean’s already hurt—and now Dad, as if the shifter would have reminded him about the silver.

He cuts Dad’s arm anyway. No burning.

Then he pulls away, tries to take a look at Dean. But Dean starts shrugging him off. “Dude, I’m fine.”

Sam can smell smoke on them both, and a fainter smell of burnt flesh, and his stomach turns. “It’s dead, then?”

Dad nods. Looks almost proud. “Took a crossbow bolt to the heart. Burned to ash.”

Sam blinks. Dean’s the one with the crossbow. “So,” he says, and he tries to meet Dean’s eyes, but they’re stony. Still, he tilts his head, insisting on the question.

Finally Dean nods. “Ganked the son of a bitch. Felt damn good, too.”

Sam swallows. The last of the grape candy sticks in his throat.

“Oh,” he says. “Uh.”

They’re both looking at him like he’s supposed to say something, but he doesn’t know what. _Cool, you killed something and you liked it?_

Instead, he wipes the silver knife on his jeans and sticks it back in the sheath. “We should get you patched up,” he says. It comes out faint and far away.

Dad shakes his head. “Gotta clear out of here. Don’t want any chance of the cops poking around. We’ll get to a motel first.”

And just like that, they start moving towards the car. Sam hands the keys back to Dad and takes a deep breath. The hunt’s over. Dad and Dean are hurt, but not bad enough they can’t wait. Everything’s going to be fine.

But Dad stops with the driver’s door open. “And Sam?”

“Yes sir?” says Sam.

“That was a damn stupid thing to do, forgetting to check for the shifter. Thought I told you, silver on anyone that comes near.”

“Yes sir,” says Sam.

Dad nods. “Remind me to beat some sense into your ass later.”

He gets in the car. Sam drops his head and gets in too.

Maybe not so fine.

\----

Dean shoves in Black Sabbath as soon as they get started. The tape’s halfway through from the last time they played it and Sam tries to tune it out, tries not to let Dad’s heavy presence weigh him down. Tries to be grateful like he should, cause everybody came out okay. Even though it was a hard job. Even though he screwed up, fell asleep and forgot about the silver and cried like a two-year-old.

He digs his homework out of his bag and goes back to answering questions about bodies of water. Dad cranks the music up just as the song changes, and Dean’s nodding his head to the beat but Sam winces. He knows which one this is.

The chorus comes in.

 _So live for today_  
Tomorrow never comes.  
Die young, die young

“Uh,” says Sam, “can we skip this song?”

Dean grumbles, but he starts fast-forwarding, and then he changes his mind and switches out Black Sabbath for AC/DC.

“Thanks,” says Sam. He doesn’t get a response, so he just goes on with geography.

“Bleeding slowing down, Dean?” Dad asks.

“Yes sir,” says Dean. “Well, not my side so much.”

Dad grunts. “Sam, toss him your shirt.”

Sam takes off his hoodie and sets it aside, because that’s more expensive to replace, then pulls off his flannel button-down and hands it to Dean. Dean doesn’t reach back very far and Sam bites his lip. The Black Sabbath song keeps circling in his head.

_Die young, die young…_

He grits his teeth and finishes the geography page. The sun’s up now, glinting on the autumn leaves, and he frowns at his messy handwriting from last night when he had to hold the flashlight over the page. But it’s not worth redoing, really. Maybe he should just go on to some other homework, something new that’ll keep his mind off everything.

When he opens his duffel to put the geography book back in and look for something else, he remembers the towel still on the seat beside him. As he pulls out his math book, he wads up the towel and stuffs it into the bag. He doesn’t want to look at it. Doesn’t want Dean to see it, either, that’s for sure.

The song on now is that one all about blood everywhere and Sam doesn’t know if he can take it but he’s pretty sure they won’t skip a song for him twice. Dad’s nodding along to this one too and Sam wants to scream. _I want you to bleed for me_ , Dean sings with the tape.

Sam punches the seat beside him.

“You know what, Sam?” says Dad, suddenly. “I’m sick of your attitude. We’re in this thing together, and you’d better start acting like it.”

Sam’s throat shuts. He was already in trouble and now he’s gone and made Dad mad again.

“Your brother and I are torn up from saving people’s lives tonight and you’re back there having a temper tantrum. If we didn’t need to get these injuries looked at ASAP, I’d pull over and deal with you right on the side of the road, understand?”

He tries to swallow past the lump. “Yes sir. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry’s not what I’m looking for. You need to shape up, Sam. Show me you give a shit about something besides sitting around safe with a pile of books.”

“Come on, Sam,” Dean breaks in. “You know hunting’s a big deal. Besides, it’s us. You and me and Dad. Family business, right?”

Sam feels the pit of his stomach go hollow.

“Right,” he says. His voice is flat; the whole world is, now. “Family business.”

\----

They’re all quiet after that. After an hour or so of driving, Dad takes an exit with some motel signs and they unload into a room. Dean’s gotten paler, so Sam and Dad carry all the gear and when Dad digs out the first aid kit, he says, “Dean first.”

Dean drops Sam’s shirt on the floor and starts pulling off his jacket. He goes slow; Sam can tell it hurts. But when he tries helping, Dean smacks at his arm.

“Dude. Hands off.”

One jacket and two shirts later, Dean sits down on the end of the bed by the door, and Sam and Dad survey the damage. There’s blood in three places, not counting the cut Sam had to make, and a big raw scrape across Dean’s cheek. A gash in his side is still flowing steadily.

Sam snatches up Dean’s shirt to press against it while Dad opens a bottle of jack for disinfectant. He pours a little on the sleeve of Dean’s t-shirt and dabs it into the other two cuts, then pours a little more and drags it across the scrape. Dean hisses through his teeth but he stays still.

“Let me look at that side,” says Dad, so Sam pries the shirt off it. Dad crouches in front of Dean, and Sam peers over his shoulder. The blood’s starting to clot. Still, the gash is pretty big and it looks angry.

“Stitches,” says Dad. “Dean, want something to take the edge off?”

Dean holds out his hand for the bottle and knocks it back. Dad preps the needle and then he’s got it under Dean’s skin and Sam puts out his hand for Dean to grip but Dean doesn’t take it. He just shuts his eyes and squeezes the bedspread in his fist.

Sam remembers Dean saying _this is us_ , and thinks: if Sam is supposed to be in this too, why is Dean shutting him out?

It doesn’t line up.

Dad stitches fast and neat. Before long, he’s left Dean shaking on the bed and gone to dig through a bag. Sam wants to put his hand on Dean’s shoulder, wants to say something, wants Dean to let him help. Wants to tell him, I’m sorry I’m such a little shit sometimes but I care, I promise, I care; I just want you to care a little too.

Dad’s coming back. He’s got the towel.

“Found this in your bag,” he says. “Gotta make some bandages. Dean, you holding up?”

“A-okay, sir,” says Dean. Even forces a smirk.

Dad shakes out the towel, makes one slash with his folding knife, and then starts ripping. When he’s got the first strip, he tosses it to Sam.

“Make yourself useful.”

Sam looks at Dean. Dean doesn’t even blink.

Sam grits his teeth, finds a knife, and makes a cut. Then he takes the towel in his hands and pulls, feeling it rip along the grain.

 _Never know what might save your life_ , Pastor Jim said. Well, Sam figures, you never know _how_ , either. He hopes it’s not wrong to tear up something that’s been blessed, but in the end they’re still using it for the same sort of thing. It’s still serving society and being part of a dangerous occupation.

He rips again. Dad’s using the strips to bandage Dean’s wounds. Dean’s going to get better; that’s what matters, isn’t it? Dean being alive is way more important than Dean caring about some joke he had with Sam. That’s what Dad would say.

Sam keeps ripping the towel, and he gets angry. Gets angry because he wants both. Dean alive _and_ kidding around with him. Dad coming home uninjured _and_ coming home to do something other than drink and yell and train. And he knows he’s selfish as hell, and he doesn’t want to be, but he just doesn’t get why it has to be a trade-off.

Dad doesn’t need the last strip, so Sam shoves it back in his bag. Then they help Dean lie back on the bed. He holds out his hand again.

“Come on,” he grunts, when Sam and Dad don’t respond immediately. “Come on, let me at it.”

Dad hands him the bottle. “Go easy. Still need some disinfectant myself.”

“Yes sir,” Dean says. His voice is tight and weak, but he sits up enough for a swallow. Then he lies back and shuts his eyes tight. Sam watches, waiting for Dean’s breathing to even out. Waiting for it to get better. Waiting for it to have never happened.

“Sam,” Dad snaps. He’s getting out of his own jacket and shirt. “Help me out.”

Waiting for the day Dad realizes he shouldn’t be dragging them around on hunts like this.

Sam goes to help Dad. He’s careful and methodical as he cleans out the cuts. But he’s angry too.

Because if they die young, it won’t just be on whatever monster does them in. It’ll be on Dad.


	3. But Perhaps Neither Gain Nor Loss

When Dad’s patched up, he finishes off the whiskey and gets in the other bed. Sam’s kinda tired, but mostly he’s hungry; the peanuts weren’t much to go on. But he knows Dad and Dean are pretty tired. After all, _they_ didn’t fall asleep on the hunt.

So he grabs a quick shower and changes clothes, then makes a search for food in the duffels. There’s nothing much, and Sam’s not hungry enough to eat canned peas at (he checks his watch—10:43—then the microwave) eight in the morning. He settles for rolling out the sleeping bag they brought from the car, stealing the pillow Dean’s not using, and curling up.

As he closes his eyes, the anger that was pumping through him settles a little. It hardens into a ball inside his heart, tiny and secret but waiting. When something happens, he knows it’s ready to explode. And it’s scary, and it’s shameful, but it’s there. Sam can’t get rid of it.

He can’t get rid of it, and he doesn’t want to think about it. He spent all night thinking and nothing’s gotten any clearer.

Sam draws a deep breath and curls up tighter. He doesn’t fall asleep exactly, but he does drift, wandering in and out of his thoughts until he hears Dad get up and start the shower. Then he gives up and puts the sleeping bag away. Checks his watch (10:43) then the microwave. It’s one in the afternoon.

Then Dad comes out and suddenly they’re busy. Waking Dean up, checking his injuries. Dean showering. Bandaging him up again. Putting the bloody shirts from earlier to soak in the sink.

“There’s a deli down the road,” Dad says. “You up to that, Dean? I checked; it’s not all green stuff.”

Dean lifts his eyebrows. “I ain’t dying over here, Dad. Yeah, I can get lunch with you guys.”

The deli’s better than a lot of places Dad picks, but Sam doesn’t get to try any cool sandwiches because Dad lies about Sam’s age and makes him order off the kids’ menu. The hard little ball of anger rolls around inside him. He knows it’s a stupid thing to be upset about, but he can’t seem to quit.

And then Dad and Dean start talking about the crossbow. Sam eats his turkey club and remembers that he’s bad at the crossbow, and he’s upset about that too.

“Your skills are pretty solid,” Dad tells Dean. “Might need a scope to get you to the next level.”

Dean furrows his brow. “Those things ain’t cheap, Dad. I can just put in the practice.”

“It’s a good investment. Besides, maybe it’ll move Sam along.”

Sam keeps eating. He remembers all Dad’s comments last summer on how slow his crossbow progress was. Remembers the day he said he’d rather play soccer. Remembers the hours and hours he had to spend on it afterwards, how he tried to make it better by telling himself that Faramir and Robin Hood would practice hard on a crossbow if that’s what they had. Remembers thinking, he can’t be Faramir or Robin Hood. He’s not brave, and he’s not cool, and he’s definitely not an archer.

“Sam.”

Dad’s voice. Sam doesn’t look up. “What?”

“Sam, look at me when I talk to you.”

Sam obeys.

“Do you think a telescopic sight would fix some of your problems with the crossbow?”

“I don’t know,” Sam says. “I’ve never tried one.”

“It makes aiming more calculated and mechanical,” Dad explains. “Gives you something more concrete than just sighting down the bolt.”

“I don’t know,” Sam says, again. “Maybe.”

“He does fine looking down the barrel of a gun,” says Dean. “Maybe it’s just his stance.”

“Maybe it’s just the fact that I don’t give a damn,” says Sam.

“ _Sam_ ,” says Dad, low and warning. “This family—”

“It’s not that,” Sam protests. “It’s just, why learn to use a crossbow when a gun’s going to do as well or better in almost every case? And it’s easier to transport, and easier to get ammo for.”

“Makes noise, though,” says Dean.

“Sam,” says Dad, even quieter. “You could have just ruined a hunt by failing to perform a simple check. You really think you’re in a place to give me advice?”

Sam feels himself going red. “No sir,” he whispers.

“Good,” says Dad. “Cause we’re still gonna have to deal with that. Up to you how much worse it gets, understand?”

“Yes sir,” says Sam, and then he goes back to his sandwich as Dad and Dean start talking about the shape of the silver heads they’d made for the bolts. The red on his face starts to fade, but he still hates that he said that stuff. He can’t ever seem to say the right thing to Dad.

And he knows he’s gotta hide it, but he’s still angry. Angry that Dad wouldn’t listen, keeps bringing up the shit he’s done. Angry at himself, that he doesn’t know how to be a better son.

And he’s a little nervous, too, because the way Dad’s been talking usually means the belt’s coming off. He can’t help hoping Dad’ll wait long enough he forgets, but that never happens. So instead he hopes he won’t have to wait too long. The longer it is, the more chance there is Sam will make Dad mad again.

It just seems to happen.

\----

When they get back to the motel, it’s time to check on Dad and Dean’s injuries again. Then Sam does homework while Dean watches TV. Dad writes in his journal. They get takeout around (10:43) seven-fifteen and eat scattered around the room, not talking.

Sam is picking at the last grains of rice from his carton of Chinese food when Dad gets up and clicks off the TV. Sam’s stomach drops because maybe he’s about to get his punishment, but instead Dad starts digging through his wallet.

“Dean,” he says, “you got a good ID? A twenty-one or over?”

“Yeah,” says Dean. “Two I think.”

“Let’s go out,” says Dad. “Celebrate your first big hunt, huh son?”

“Hell yeah,” says Dean. He looks like he’s in pain when he climbs off the bed, but he throws on a jacket and grins, flashing two drivers’ licenses. “Whatcha think, Sammy? Ted Nugent or Cliff Williams?”

 Sam shrugs. “Whichever one had a birthday most recently.”

“The real dude, or the card?”

“You know their birthdays?”

“Naw.” Dean looks at the cards. “Going with Cliff then. Where we headed, Dad?”

Dad gestures vaguely. “Saw a bar just past the deli. Sam, I want to find you here when I get back, understand?”

“Okay,” says Sam.

And just like that, they’re gone.

They’re gone and he can breathe again, like a thick cloud of humidity just evaporated or a threatening knife got sheathed. He straightens the covers on Dean’s bed and pulls over his duffel so he can spread out all his homework. Then he makes a list and crosses off everything he’s done. Geography, math, literature. The only other class with homework is science, and that’s just five pages of reading. Sam figures he’ll save that to do in the car; he’s gonna need to distract himself with something.

But he’s gotta distract himself with something now, too, and none of the five channels Dean was clicking through seem that interesting. He straightens up his schoolbooks and puts the list on top of them, tucking them back into his bag and searching around for a book.

He’s got to have brought a book, right?

But he goes all the way through his duffel and finds nothing but schoolbooks. Which is weird, because he doesn’t remember ever being stupid enough not to bring a book for a trip with Dad. Trips with Dad are long, they mean lots of time stuck in motel rooms, and there’s always fights waiting to happen. Books are the best solution he has, and now he’s just left them behind?

Because he wasn’t supposed to be here, his tired mind finally fills in. He’s supposed to be with Pastor Jim, and on car rides with Pastor Jim there aren’t any fights. They were going to be with a church and then go do something fun, not hunt and sit in a motel. He might have wanted a book, but he wouldn’t have needed one.

Sam wonders if Pastor Jim prayed about the hunt, and if that’s why the shifter didn’t kill him when he fell asleep. And why Dad didn’t find him sleeping, either.

All at once Sam knows what he wants to do. He wants to call Pastor Jim.

So he spins around to the nightstand between the beds, but then he notices. There isn’t a phone.

If he can’t call Pastor Jim from the room, and he can’t leave the room, then he can’t call. Which sucks, but that’s how it is, so he plops down at the TV and spends a rather miserable fifteen minutes changing the channel and reminding himself how useless it is to wish Dad hadn’t shown up in Blue Earth. He thinks too much and tries not to and can’t stop and thinks more about how stupid it is that he can’t stop. There’s so much noise inside his head, like three rock songs all at once and all too loud.

He clicks the TV off. How could he have forgotten to bring a book, he thinks, and then he remembers. He didn’t, but Dean did. Unzipped his duffel to bury it under the clothes—in case Dad saw, probably. Sam wonders if it’s the book Dean’s essay was on.

The back cover is up when he digs it out and he opens it that way, seeing the name Billy Pilgrim on the last page. It is the book from the essay, then, and Sam keeps flipping slowly towards the front. He can’t help feeling like he shouldn’t read it. Like it’s Dean’s, not just the pages but the words somehow, and Dean hasn’t invited him to share them.

But Dean isn’t here. And Dean didn’t care about the towel anymore, so Sam’s not sure he’ll still care about the book. Maybe he just cares about hunting now. Drinking and crossbows and all that crap Dad likes. Revenge. Getting covered in guts because that’s what real men do. Acting like that Black Sabbath song is a real way to live, _tomorrow never comes_ and all that.

Well, Sam doesn’t think _die young_ makes that great a mantra.

He flips the page. It’s the beginning of a chapter.

_“Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles from the home I live in all year round, was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes._

_Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes.”_

Sam swallows. But he keeps reading.

_“And every day my Government gives me a count of corpses created by military science in Vietnam. So it goes._

_My father died many years ago now—of natural causes. So it goes. He was a sweet man. He was a gun nut, too. He left me his guns. They rust.”_

He tries to swallow again. It’s harder. Not that he can imagine Dad dying of natural causes, let alone anyone calling him “sweet.” But he knows if Dad died and left him guns today, he would let them sit and rust. Dean would hate him for it, call him a coward. Dad would call him a bad son. But how can you say _so it goes_ about people getting shot when, after all, somebody had to shoot them?

_“On Tralfamadore, says Billy Pilgrim, there isn't much interest in Jesus Christ. The Earthling figure who is most engaging to the Tralfamadorian mind, he says, is Charles Darwin—who taught that those who die are meant to die, that corpses are improvements. So it goes.”_

And Sam wants to imagine Dean making fun, laughing at the aliens, saying, _seriously, have these dudes ever seen a corpse?_ Saying, _one good salt-and-burn and I think anybody’d want a live body over a dead one._ But he’s seen Dean’s face turn dark and hard. Heard him say over lighted graves: just the way it’s gotta be.

But if those who die are meant to die, why try to save people at all?

He can’t stand to look at the page anymore, the words right there, _corpses are improvements_ , and he starts flipping towards the beginning again. But things don’t make much sense after that. It’s just a lot of stuff about bookstores and hospitals and bombings and aliens and sex, and some weird writer, and nothing at all about dying being better.

He flips faster after seeing a story about latrines and lands somewhere in chapter four, with the aliens. Billy Pilgrim is in a time warp. Sam scans a little down the page until his breath catches at something the alien says.

_“All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.”_

And he understands, or he thinks he understands anyway. So it goes because it doesn’t _go_. It just is. Time feels like it’s changing and we feel like we’re making choices, but really nothing influences anything else. Things just are. Hunters don’t save people because it’s better to be alive. It’s just what they do. What they have to do. What they do whether they want to or not.

He looks at his watch. 10:43.

_If all time is eternally present_ , Sam thinks, and then he thinks: no. No, damn it. He doesn’t have anything solid to fight it with, but his gut is telling him it’s wrong. Time’s got to be redeemable. Doesn’t it?

He has to talk to Pastor Jim, now, and he remembers that Dad didn’t tell him not to leave. He only said to be there when they got back.

There’s a phone in the lobby for sure. Sam can make this fast.

\----

“Please leave your message after the tone.”

Voicemail. Of course. Sam sends a quick glance at the front desk clerk. She’s busy with some paperwork and it doesn’t look like she’s listening, so he clears his throat when he hears the beep.

“Hey Pastor Jim, uh, it’s Sam. Just wanted to let you know that we—got here okay. Dad’s done with his business in town, pretty much. And uh, we’re fine, but I just…”

He swallows hard. Then he blurts it out, stupid-sounding or not, all in one rush of air. “Dad’s mad at me and I dunno if Dean wants to be alive and I’m worried that all time is unredeemable so please I, um. We should be back soon. Bye.”

Well, he screwed that up. He turns to thank the clerk for letting him use the phone, but she’s gone into the next room.

And then the phone rings.

He reaches towards it before he thinks and snatches it up. “Hello?”

“Sam?”

“Pastor Jim!”

“Where are you calling from, son?”

“Uh, Wahpeton. Just over the North Dakota border. Pastor Jim, I left you a note.”

“I saw it. You all safe?”

“Yeah. I mean, mostly.”

Pastor Jim sighs. “Well, that’s something, I suppose. And John killed that shifter.”

“No,” says Sam, heavily. “No. Dean did.”

A pause. And then: “I see.”

“It’s awful,” Sam says. “He won’t talk to me. And Dad’s mad because I—I’m not good at helping out. You know.”

“With hunts?”

“Yeah. And Pastor Jim?”

“Yes?”

“I was reading your book, the _Four Quartets_ , and it said if all time is eternally present, then all time is unredeemable, and—and do you think that’s true? That time is eternally present? That we can’t fix the moment we’re in and that, that it just has to happen?”

Pastor Jim’s voice is gentle. “Do you think that?”

“No!” Sam says. “Or at least, I don’t want to. But I’m scared, I’m so scared—”

“That what you do doesn’t make any difference?”

“Yeah,” says Sam. He feels small, and tired, and he just wants Pastor Jim to know the answer.

“Sam,” says Pastor Jim, “listen to me, okay? I believe that your choices and actions make a difference. I believe everyone’s do. But it’s up to you what you believe, and maybe you want to believe that but you can’t yet. But you know what you can do? You can try to make that difference. You can keep making your choices. And if it can’t be fixed, then it won’t be. But if it can, someone has to do the fixing.”

“I don’t know how to fix things,” Sam says, but he feels a little better.

“You don’t have to fix them,” says Pastor Jim. “You just have to try.”

“But how,” Sam starts, “how do I try—” but then he hears an engine turn off and through the glare on the front windows he sees a car, Dad’s car, and his throat closes up.

“I have to go,” he says, as fast as he can, and he can almost hear Pastor Jim’s worried frown over the phone but he slams the receiver down.

Not fast enough. Dad’s in the door, one arm supporting Dean, and they’re both staring straight at Sam. The clerk is still in the other room.

“Get back to the fucking room,” Dad growls, and his words slur. Sam goes, tripping over his feet, heartbeat almost as loud in his chest as Dad and Dean’s boots on the floor behind him.

Door’s locked, just like he left it. Dad digs the key out of his pocket and they crowd in. Dean collapses into bed, and Sam hopes and hopes that Dad will do the same.

He doesn’t. He just stands there, breathing heavy and stinking like whiskey and puke. Must’ve been a gross bar, Sam thinks. Dad never pukes.

And then Dad looks straight at him. “Why the hell can’t you stay where I put you?”

Sam doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know if he’s meant to say anything. Only knows that if it’s bad when Dad’s mad at him, it’s got to be worse when he’s mad and drunk. He’s never done this before, never faced Dad drunk without Dean to help keep things calm.

Dad’s still staring at him. It makes Sam feel like he’s a specimen from a bug collection. And not even a very good one, either.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Dad snorts. “Told you one too many times now. Sorry’s not gonna cut it.” And then he looks away. “Get to bed. Tomorrow, we deal with this first thing.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam says again. He can’t seem to help it.

Dad’s halfway to bed. He turns back. “You want me to change my mind?”

“No sir,” says Sam.

Dad turns off the lamp. Sam can feel the amber closing in around him.

\----

He wakes up to the sound of faint voices and a fuzzy sense of dread. His eyelids are heavy. He rolls over without opening them and tries to shut the voices out, but it doesn’t work.

“I told you, Dad, it’s more the hangover than anything else. You wanna hit the road right now, I’m ready.”

“Glad to hear it, Dean. But it ain’t you I’m waiting on.”

Dean’s voice catches just a little. “Something wrong with Sam?”

“Something? More like everything. I’m telling you, Dean, I don’t know what to do with the kid. He just won’t listen.” Dad takes a couple steps around the room, sighs. Sam tucks further into the sleeping bag. “He’s had it coming since he fought me about you being ready for this hunt in the first place.”

“You gonna lick him?”

“He’s not leaving me much choice, is he?”

“But you said we’re driving back today. That’s four, five hours sitting, Dad.”

“Four, five hours to think. Get him up.”

The fuzzy dread solidifies and sinks deep into Sam’s stomach. He hears Dean coming over, but he doesn’t open his eyes. He wouldn’t say he’s scared to get up, exactly; he just—doesn’t want to.

“Come on, dude,” says Dean. “These bandages are seriously restrictive. Don’t make me come down there.”

Sam rolls onto his back and pries his eyelids open, but he only stares at the ceiling. Dean nudges Sam’s side with his toes. It tickles, which is totally inappropriate for the situation, and Sam sits up if only to preserve his moody dignity. Dad’s busy with something and not looking, so he ignores Dean and heads into the bathroom.

He locks the door behind him, uses the toilet, washes his hands, and dries them with the towel hanging on the wall. Forgets, and looks at his watch. The numbers stare up at him. 10:43.

Then he leans his back against the door and tries to calm down. Tells himself it’s stupid to be upset, tells himself he’s gonna be fine, tells himself it doesn’t matter if it hurts. Hell, Dean’s got a great big gash in his side, and he’s not complaining. The least Sam can do is be a man about the belt. It’s not like Dad doesn’t have a reason for it, either. Sam could’ve screwed up the hunt, and after that he kept making Dad mad when he knew better. And he’s not telling Dad, but he damn well deserves _something_ for falling asleep on the job.

He unlocks the bathroom door. Pulls it open.

Dad’s waiting for him. The belt’s already in his hand. Sam wants so bad to run, to go shut himself in the bathroom again or dart straight out the door. But he doesn’t. He just kinda stands there.

“Time to get this over with,” says Dad.

“Yes sir,” says Sam.

“You wanna tell me what you did?”

“I left the room last night,” Sam starts. “When you told me not to.”

Dad nods. “Anything else?”

“I talked back about the crossbow.”

“Anything else?”

“I, uh. I had an attitude about the music in the car.”

“All right. Anything else.”

He doesn’t want to look at Dad, but he knows he has to. “I didn’t check for the shifter.”

“And you know just how dangerous that could have been? Could have got any number of people killed.”

Sam swallows. “Yes sir.”

Dad looks him over a second, then nods. “Anything else?”

“I questioned your authority about bringing Dean along.”

“That it?”

“I think so, sir.” The lie weighs heavy on his chest.

“Pretty big list, Sam.”

“Yes sir.”

“You gonna stay where I put you and take the consequences, or am I gonna have to get Dean to hold you down?”

Sam looks over at Dean. Dean doesn’t meet his eyes.

“I’ll do it,” he says. “I don’t need Dean.”

Dad nods. He doesn’t have to say anything else; a gesture’s enough to let Sam know he needs to bend over the end of the bed. Sam gets himself braced and his feet planted, but Dad still comes and adjusts him a little. Sam starts wishing fervently he’d worn jeans to bed instead of gym shorts.

It’s too late now. (So it goes.)

Then he hears the snap and he squeezes his eyes shut just as it lands, stinging and aching and sore. He thought he was ready but he wasn’t; he never is. It hurts more than he thought, like it always does, and one of his feet slides forward.

“Sam,” says Dad. Warning.

Sam puts his foot back. Tries to breathe. Tries to be ready this time.

Dad lets loose again, faster, three in a row. Sam clenches his jaw and manages not to make any noise. Dad’s only getting started, but maybe after a minute Sam’ll get used to it a little.

He doesn’t. Dad keeps changing it up, swinging fast or slow, switching places all the time and then suddenly picking on one. Even lands a few below the edge of Sam’s shorts. There’s no pattern and no warning and every hit is like something totally new. Sam wants to cry.

Dad would be mad if he cried. (So it goes.)

Dad talks, too, talks about the hunt, about insubordination, about respect, about how damn careless Sam is. Sam tries not to listen. The belt’s bad enough on its own, and he already knows he’s not good enough for Dad. He could be the best crossbow shot in the whole world, and it wouldn’t make any difference.

Dad would still hate him. (So it goes.)

He’s shaking now and he’s so sore and the belt is still slamming down, harder and harder.  And the moment is so long, he thinks, and he can’t fix it; all he can do is wait and hope it’ll end. Try, Pastor Jim said, but try what?

Dad starts slowing down. Hardest ones yet. Sam gasps and his breath hitches but he doesn’t cry, he doesn’t cry.

“Understand, Sam?” Dad says.

Sam doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to, but he nods. “Yes sir.”

“Okay,” says Dad. “Just three more.”

They thunder down, one-two-three on his bare thighs, and Sam’s in a daze of pain as Dad grips his shoulder and stands him up.

“Get dressed and get packed,” he says. “I want to be on the road in twenty minutes.”

“Yes sir,” says Sam. He doesn’t look at Dad. He doesn’t want to move and he definitely doesn’t want to get in the car, but it’s not about what Sam wants. It never is.

(So it goes.)

In twenty minutes, it’ll be 10:43.

\----

There’s construction on the road back to Pastor Jim’s and they have to take a detour. Sam reads his five pages of science for homework, then finishes off the chapter. After that he goes back and reviews the whole book, because if he doesn’t keep himself busy he’s gonna keep shifting around in his seat to see if he can get it to hurt less, and at some point Dad’s gonna notice.

Dean’s got on Black Sabbath again. The tape cycles all the way through both sides at least five times, including rewind time, but Sam only seems to tune in when it’s playing “Die Young.” Figures.

Still, every round through the tape is another forty minutes closer to Pastor Jim’s. And getting back to Pastor Jim’s means Dad leaving again. It means soccer and school and a room with a dresser. It means no hunts, and only a little training, and no more worrying about making people mad. Pastor Jim doesn’t get mad like Dad does.

He felt like a bug trapped in amber before, but now that’s starting to change, like he can see a way out. He still can’t do anything about whether he gets there or not, but time’s come unstuck somehow and he clings to that.

His watch is still broken, but he takes it off. Stuffs it in his duffel bag so he doesn’t have to face the glaring numbers.

The trip takes more than five hours. By the time they get into Blue Earth, it’s four in the afternoon and Sam knows he’d be shifting in his seat even if it weren’t for the bruises. Dad looks back at him in the mirror, but he doesn’t say anything. Sam doesn’t say anything either. Just looks out the window and feels the time tick. Waits and hopes and tells himself, nobody’s dead and this’ll be over soon.

Then they’re in the neighborhood and they’re on the street and they’re turning into the driveway, and before they even stop Pastor Jim is at the door. Sam launches out of the car, grabbing his duffel from the seat beside him, and God it hurts to walk after sitting so long on his sore ass but he doesn’t care. He’s up the driveway in a flash.

Dean gets out and walks around with the keys to get his bag from the trunk, and then Dad’s door opens and slams. He comes up the driveway, a hand on Dean’s elbow but both eyes on Sam.

Sam, standing on the steps, edges closer to Pastor Jim. Dad’s still angry. But it doesn’t matter anymore.

Dean starts up the steps too, but Pastor Jim doesn’t move out of the doorway. Just puts out his hands, one on Sam’s shoulder and one on Dean’s. Dad stops at the bottom of the steps.

“John,” says Pastor Jim, and his voice is low and hard.

“Jim,” says Dad. “Wish you’d been there to see Dean take that shifter. Hell of a shot.”

“If I’d been there,” Pastor Jim says, “Dean wouldn’t have had to be.”

Dad bristles. “You wouldn’t have—”

But Pastor Jim holds up his hand. “To keep these boys out of a hunt like that? You bet I’d have come. But you didn’t wait to see, did you?” He starts to turn, taking Sam and Dean in with him. But then he looks back over his shoulder.

“And John?” he says. “Buy a damn cell phone.”

And he shuts the door.

Sam lets go of a long, heavy breath, and he smiles at Pastor Jim, and then he looks over at Dean. Dean isn’t smiling. He’s just standing there, stiff and pale with his shoulders back, staring at nothing.

Pastor Jim notices, too. His eyes flicker to the scrape on Dean’s cheek. “You hurt, Dean?”

Dean shrugs.

“Yeah,” says Sam. “He is.”

Pastor Jim takes the duffel from Dean’s rigid fingers, then lifts the hem of his shirt. He pulls away the stained strip of towel to look at the gash.

“Go lie down, son,” he says. “Probably best you stay home from school tomorrow.”

Dean nods.

“But Dean,” Sam says, “your essay, it’s—I could still take it over for you. If you want.”

Dean shrugs again. Then he turns around and heads into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. Sam watches. He feels very tired.

“What about you, Sam?” says Pastor Jim.

“Me?” says Sam.

“How are you?”

Sam shakes his head, setting his bag down next to Dean’s. “I’m—I mean, I’m not hurt. I was in the car for the whole hunt; I was supposed to make sure the shifter didn’t steal it.”

Pastor Jim nods. “What’s getting to you, then? You doing any better than you were last night?”

“Some,” says Sam. “Now that I’m back. But I just don’t know how to try to change anything with Dad. I don’t like it when he’s mad at me. And I don’t like it when Dean’s mad, either, and I want to try, Pastor Jim, really, but everything I do just makes more of a mess.”

Pastor Jim sits down on the couch, and Sam’s really not sure he wants to be sitting again so soon but it’s a nice thought, talking together on the couch, so he sits down too. It still hurts but it’s better than the car.

“You can’t change what your dad does,” Pastor Jim tells him. “You know that, right? If you start making your own choices and he still treats you the same way, that’s about him messing things up, not about you. Everyone’s responsible for their own actions, and that includes your dad.”

“But,” Sam says, and then he stops because he’s not sure what he was going to say.

“But what?” asks Pastor Jim.

Sam hesitates. “But,” he says, “how’s anything going to change, then? Cause Dad won’t. He never does. No matter what I do, he always wins.”

“What do you want to change?” Pastor Jim asks.

“I want him to listen to me,” Sam says.

“Only he can make that choice,” says Pastor Jim, and Sam sighs, but Pastor Jim goes on. “But you remember what I said before? Even if your efforts don’t change him, they change you. And that means they matter.”

He reaches for the bookshelf behind him and pulls out Eliot’s _Four Quartets_ , flipping towards the end of the book. “You really should read the whole thing,” he says. “It’ll make that early part about whether time is redeemable make a lot more sense. But here, there’s one part I want to show you.”

He hands Sam the book, his finger pointing out two lines.

Sam reads them out loud. “ _Only undefeated / Because we have gone on trying_. So like, if you never give up, they can’t ever say you’ve lost?”

Pastor Jim smiles a little. “Pretty much.”

“So if I keep trying to get Dad to listen, he hasn’t won.” Sam closes the book gently. “I can do that, I guess. I mean, I think it’ll get easier if I think about it that way. It’s hard when you feel like you lose all the time. But this, it’s like you’re—you’re winning inside. Because at least you’re going someplace, even if the people stopping you are too strong for you to get there.”

Pastor Jim nods. “You’re going on the path to who you want to be,” he says.

Sam looks at him. “I want to be a person who gets listened to,” he says. “And who listens to people. So like, if I went to talk to Dean, do you think—I mean, do you think that would be worth trying?”

“I’m sure it would,” says Pastor Jim.

Sam stands up and goes to grab the duffels, but before he gets there he feels Pastor Jim’s arm around his shoulder, turning him around into a hug.

Nobody’s looking. Dad won’t know. Sam closes his eyes and hugs back.

It feels safe. But there’s something pressing at him still, and he’s got to get it out.

“Pastor Jim,” he whispers, “I, uh—if I tell you something, will you not tell Dad? Because it’s something I’m really sorry about but I just, well. I can’t take him being mad at me anymore. Not right now. But I feel really bad.”

“Of course,” Pastor Jim says, drawing back from the hug to look at him. “Go ahead.”

Sam swallows. Even though Pastor Jim’s face is gentle, it’s hard to meet his eyes.

“I fell asleep,” he says. “On the hunt. I wasn’t a good lookout. I screwed up, and I could’ve gotten Dad and Dean killed, and I didn’t even tell them.”

He can’t stand it anymore, can’t bear the gentleness when he’s done something so awful, can’t deal with love when he feels so dark inside for not caring enough about his family to just stay awake, and for being such a coward that he couldn’t admit what he did to the people he failed. He looks down, shrinking under the warm weight of Pastor Jim’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

 “Sam,” Pastor Jim says. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. Falling asleep is just ordinary human weakness.”

Sam looks up again. “But—” he says.

Pastor Jim sighs. “It’s okay, Sam,” he says. “You’re okay.”

\----

Sam swings open the door to the bedroom he shares with Dean and wedges his way inside with the duffels. Dean’s lying in bed with an arm thrown over his face.

Sam puts the bags down and unzips his. He starts taking out his school stuff, stacking it neatly. Once in a while he glances over at Dean, but there’s no sign Dean even knows he’s in the room.

After the school stuff it’s mostly clothes, and of that mostly clothes he didn’t wear because he packed for a funeral instead of a hunt. But stuffed in among them is a strip off the edge of an old towel. Their freaking blessed towel.

On impulse, Sam balls it up and tosses it across the room at Dean.

Dean pushes himself up on one elbow and pulls it off his face. “Dude, what the hell.”

Sam shrugs. “Might save your life,” he says. “All that _die young, die young_ stuff got me a little worried.”

“Shut up,” Dean says. “I ain’t dying. Nobody’s dying.”

“Not right now, anyway,” Sam mutters. He starts sorting through his clothes—some into the hamper, some back into his drawers—and addresses Dean again. “Pastor Jim said he’s got clean bandages for you. He’s gotta run over to the church for the evening service, but after that he’ll be back. Like, an hour. And we can eat dinner whenever.”

Sam sees a faint light flicker into Dean’s eyes. Should’ve guessed that’d be what would help. “You wanna eat now?” he asks.

“Yeah,” says Dean. “I changed my mind; I am dying. Right now. Of hunger. –We still got those mini apple pies in the freezer?”

“Unless you ate them,” says Sam.

“Dude,” says Dean. “I’d know if I’d eaten them.”

“I bet there’s frozen pizza too,” says Sam. “The good kind.”

“Okay,” says Dean, and he pulls himself wearily out of bed but then fast as anything he wads up the strip of towel and throws it back at Sam. “That thing might save your life,” he says, “but you know what’s gonna save mine? Food.”

And he smirks over his shoulder as he heads out into the hallway.

Sam looks down at the strip of towel in his hands. As long as they’re both still alive, he thinks, and he rolls it up. Tucks it into his sock drawer.

“I’m not making your pizza,” Dean calls from the kitchen.

“Coming,” Sam calls back. But first, he takes his broken watch out of the bag.

10:43.

He throws it away.


End file.
